Seanad debates

Thursday, 20 March 2003

Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages.

 

One other provision of the section that we wish to delete is the definition of the information that it covers, that is, the reference to information produced solely and primarily for the purposes of Cabinet. This provision was very deliberately worded in 1997. It restricted the amount of information that could be protected in order to ensure only information produced entirely for the purposes of Cabinet discussions would be protected from immediate release. The Minister is now, in effect, extending this provision well beyond its original terms to cover information held at a very low level within a Department which might conceivably at some stage in the future come before Cabinet. We consider that this goes far beyond what is reasonable in the circumstances and beyond the reasons the Government and the high level review group offered for proposing the section.

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